Former Liverpool starlet Nathan Eccleston has described his journey from the Reds first team to the bottom of the Hungarian league.

Eccleston made his debut as an 18-year-old in 2009, and recently netted his first goal for most recent club Bekescsaba, report the Liverpool Echo.

It is the latest in a string of teams Eccleston has represented since breaking through at Anfield.

“I didn’t play a competitive game for seven months, so I’ve got to get used to playing again. I got my first start as a striker on Saturday and scored in a good win against the team who are sixth in the league.

"Wins have been few and far between here this season so it was good to get on the scoresheet and help the team win,” said Eccleston in an interview with ITV.

(Image: Tom Szczerbowski)

The 25-year-old striker made just one start at Anfield, in a dead rubber in the Europa League under Roy Hodgson against Utrecht with another eight appearances as a substitute, perhaps best summed up by his penalty miss in the infamous defeat to Northampton Town in the League Cup in September 2010.

Eccleston had loan spells at Huddersfield, Charlton and Rochdale before a permanent move to Blackpool on the last day of the transfer window in summer 2012.

The briefest of loan spells to Tranmere was interrupted by injury before time at Carlisle in 2013 and Coventry in 2014.

Next it was the Scottish Premier League with Partick Thistle from August 2014 until release the following February.

He stayed north with Kilmarnock, scoring once in 10 appearances but there was no deal on the table for this season, hence his move to Hungary.

Eccleston explained: “One of my former team-mates at Liverpool and Kilmarnock got approached by an agent asking if he knew of any players who wanted to move abroad.

"It’s something I’d wanted for a long time, so he got in touch with the guy and he made me aware there was interest in me from a team in Hungary.

“I did some research on Google and looked up the team to see what I could find out about them, and it was better than the other options I had at the time, so I thought ‘why not’?

“I think a lot of people were surprised, even my only family were. I’m the type of person who thinks life is for living so if the type of opportunities come about and I think I can benefit from them, then I take them.”

Eccleston has been with his new team for six weeks now and has played in the two games since his opening goal, one a narrow 1-0 loss to table-toppers Ferencvaros although he was substituted after 41 minutes yesterday.

(Image: Andrew Powell)

“The people at the football club have made me feel very welcome. It’s completely different way of living from back home; they don’t have some of the luxuries we take from granted, but I’m adjusting pretty well, I’d say. I’m enjoying it.

“I’ve had a long time off and I’ve started thinking about football differently. I’m not the same nine-year-old boy who played in the park with no responsibility - this is people’s lives.

"It got to the stage with me and football where it wasn’t making me happy; I’d train Monday to Friday and it would come to the weekend and I wouldn’t always start so my game time wasn’t regular, which was frustrating.

“There were times where I was under contract at Blackpool and my two previous clubs where I considered not playing and that’s coming from the heart. I was there doing something I loved but at the end of the week I wasn’t playing.

"There are players who are happy to pick up their wages when they’re not playing, but I’m not that type of person, I’m very ambitious.

(Image: Andrew Powell)

“Being away from it has allowed me to re-evaluate my life.

"Even in times when I’ve had offers I was still going to play five-a-side with my mates, people I went to school with, putting in your five pound to play, as I’ve always loved football.”

Eccleston seems to have rekindled his love for the game in a professional sense in his new environment, some three hours from Budapest, and is hoping some of the coaching at Liverpool will help him settle in.

“As a youngster there were a lot of foreign coaches and managers at Liverpool, so we were often taught how Spanish and Dutch players were taught, which should help me now playing in Europe.

“I’ve come here to play here to play football, as once you’re not playing no amount of money can bring you that feeling that football brings you, the feeling you had as a kid on the park.”